Many businesses often operate, at least partially, in an outdoor sales environment. For example, a plant nursery sells live plants that are often kept outside, either potted plants or plants still in the ground. In such an outdoor environment, the plants are necessarily exposed to the weather. The plants are also often grouped together with plants of the same type being placed adjacent one another. For example, the birch trees will be in one group, the spruce trees in another group, and so on over the grounds of the nursery.
Plant nurseries are not the only business in which the inventory is held and displayed for sale outdoors. Other businesses also often store all or part of their goods outdoors in related groups. For example, stones, paving blocks, aggregate materials and the like used for paving or landscaping are often segregated together in related groups and stored outdoors. Farm implement dealers, sellers of patio furniture, and similar businesses often keep at least a portion of their inventory outdoors.
In these outdoor sales environments, customers often browse or stroll around the grounds to inspect the inventory of goods while attempting to select what they wish to purchase. It is well known that sales can be increased by providing relevant sales information to such customers at the point of sale. Thus, if a customer is inspecting various types of trees in a plant nursery in an attempt to purchase a suitable tree for an intended use, or various types of stones in an attempt to purchase the right stone for a landscaping use, the chances of making a sale are increased if relevant written information could be easily provided to the customer at that time and at that location.
However, until this invention, such written information would normally be available, if at all, back inside the permanent buildings of the business because of the need to protect such information from the weather. Thus, the customer has to first go back inside to collect such information and then may have to go back outside to continue viewing the goods while reading the information. Some sales are undoubtedly lost due to the inconvenience in doing this. In addition, space inside the building which is available for the display of written information is at a premium compared to the space that is available outdoors, thus discouraging the use and availability of written information inside the building.
Permanent enclosures in the nature of cabinets could be erected for holding and storing such written information outdoors on the grounds of the business. However, the location of the various types of goods being sold is apt to change over the course of the selling season or from one selling season to the next, and the selling area may be extensive requiring a large number of such enclosures. In addition, such permanent enclosures are expensive to construct and maintain. Accordingly, such permanent enclosures are generally impractical for these types of businesses due to their expense and the difficulty involved in relocating them.
More recently, the real estate industry has attempted to provide point of sale information about a house or property at the location of the For Sale sign. In doing so, various kinds of mailbox type holders have been used to store informational sheets or brochures describing the property offered for sale. Some of these holders have an attached stake to allow them to be self supporting by driving the stake into the ground, and some holders use a bracket to allow them to be screwed or mounted onto the top edge of the For Sale sign. However, like permanent enclosures, such mailbox type holders are constructed of rigid, heavy material and are quite expensive to ship and purchase.